I'm Not
by Cheeseburger of Doom
Summary: Fred and George. Denial, sickness, and lack of communication. I'm not, really; at least, I shouldn't be.


A/N: Unfortunately, I do not own Harry Potter, or anything relating to it. This is my first attempt at Harry Potter fanfic. There is incest, be warned!

I'm Not

Sometimes George wondered if Fred even liked him at all. They were twins, and they were the best of friends; they shared the same interests, the same friends, the same store, the same life they were just short of being the same person, even.

At least, that was what people seemed to think.

Weeks passed in silence, sometimes. They got along perfectly, when there were other people around who expected them to be the brothers that they'd always known. No one else had known, however, just what went on inside these two brothers' heads; nor did either twin know what the other was thinking, even though they shared that special, almost psychic bond. George had no idea if Fred felt the same as he did, or if Fred lay awake most nights thinking about how everything he felt was wrong he may well have, but George was too afraid to ask. He was afraid that the answer would be "Yes, George, I feel exactly the same as you do," and what then? What would they do?

Life was perfect and everything was grand, but nothing was the way that George would have wanted it, had he been given the choice. He wouldn't give his twin up for anything, but he would have erased those feelings inside him that made life too painful to live, on days when Fred was working in the shop and he was too depressed to get out of bed.

__

Where's your brother?

Oh, he's feeling a little sick today.

That happens a lot these days, doesn't it?

Well, he's the test subject for our new products this month…

That's not going to gain you much business you know, ha ha.

I'm just kidding, of course. It's his turn to sleep in today…

I can hear you, and you're lying, George would think on those days. You were right the first time, I'm sick and you know it; I'm sick of all of this. You never take your turn sleeping in, so I guess you don't feel the same pain as I do; why does it have to be this way?

George wondered if Fred liked him at all, because on those days that he couldn't get out of bed, Fred never checked on him once. Fred always had a smile for him when he was well, and even when those periods of time elapsed when neither had anything to say to the other as long as George could get out of bed and face the day, Fred was there beside him.

If Fred had really liked him, and not just out of obligation, wouldn't he have wanted to sit by George's side, and make sure that he got well again? That may have only served to make George worse, but surely he couldn't know that?

George didn't really know what he wanted most of the time.

George could tell that sometimes Fred had a lot on his mind, too. Fred was never unable to crawl out of his bed and face the day, but he spent long periods of time staring out of the window of their bedroom. They lived in a nice apartment above their shop on weekdays, and went home to pester their family on the weekends. The weekends were when they got along best, in the presence of the others; the weekdays, when they slept with their backs to each other in beds that were pushed in the far corners of the room, George often wondered if they were really twins at all.

They may have been identical in appearance; they shared a sense of humor, a shop, and so many other things, but inside? He had a terrible feeling that they were completely different and he had no idea what to do about it.

Weeks of silence passed sometimes with no words between them, not while they were alone; those weeks were spent in agony, wondering why everything had turned out this way, and where the cheerfulness of childhood had gone.

Sometimes George regretted opening the shop; he never would have come to certain realizations if they hadn't. It was probably the best thing that had ever happened to them, but it also may have been the most painful. Fred was very good at what he did, and so was George; George couldn't help but admire Fred at work, though, and wish he had Fred's confidence.

The only thing wrong with wishing that was that he did have Fred's confidence; they shared so many things.

The twins had the same face, and George found himself falling in love with it. Was he in love with his twin, or was he in love with himself? Sometimes it was hard to figure out because when he looked in the mirror, he could see the person that he wanted the most.

Life was confusing.

Fred was George's best friend, and he knew that it worked vise versa at least, it should have worked both ways. Lately, they had started to hate each other. George hated sharing a shop and a life with his twin, because it meant seeing him everyday; what should have been a blessing was a curse, and it hurt every time his twin walked into the room.

George couldn't decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Fred wasn't smiling very much anymore. That was how he knew that the hatred was mutual; Fred wouldn't grin at him like he always had, instead there was a permanent scowl on his face. He could muster a smile for the customers, but that was all; life was very dismal after hours.

George didn't know Fred's reasons, nor did he want to; he was afraid to ask, afraid of the answer, afraid of admitting all the things that went on inside of his head that he tried so hard to ignore.

George knew that something was wrong. He sensed it long before Fred started showing signs. They were connected, after all; as twins, they shared a bond that most siblings never experienced. George knew, but he said nothing; if Fred didn't want to mention it, he didn't want to bring it up. It worried him sick, and increased the number of days when he couldn't get out of bed in the morning and face the world; Fred's sickness was making George weaker. It was killing the wrong twin, but George didn't care he wanted to be the one to die.

Months had passed, business was booming, and life should have been good but there were so many evenings, so many days, so many mornings and afternoons when Fred stared out of the window, or George couldn't get out of bed; weeks of silence that couldn't be broken because neither had anything to say. George thought that everything could be solved if only he asked that burning question, but he was afraid of the answer; knew that he couldn't deal with either rejection or acceptance, because both were equally terrible.

Fred became cold. Not literally instead of the hatred and the dismal feelings that had been ruling of late, there was instead a vast nothingness. They rarely spoke to each other, and the weeks of silence turned into months instead; there was nothing more to say. George had been quiet since they'd opened this shop, and he'd realized that he couldn't deny anything to himself any longer but Fred had tried, at first, to keep things the way they had always been.

Things had changed almost more than George could bear, and there was really nothing he could do about it there was no way he was going to ever ask the question that had the potential to make things better, because it also had the potential to make things that much more worse.

__

Fred, are you in love with me?

It's a strange question, I know, it's just that…I'm in love with you. I know it's wrong, but I can't help it.

I'm not asking you to accept it. I'm not asking you to accept me.

I only want one thing…

Will you forgive me?

The silence ended, but that only meant that they started arguing. There was nothing to argue about, really, but they hated each other now. Yelling seemed to ease the worry in George's heart; if he yelled, that meant that Fred wasn't sick, it meant that he wasn't in love with his brother, it meant that he was normal and angry and that was all; if he yelled at Fred, it meant that there was nothing else going on.

A normal argument.

Fred argued back, but with less force that George knew he was capable of. George could tell that he was sad, depressed even; he probably didn't want to die, especially if the last thing he heard was his twin brother yelling at him.

That always made George pause, but he always continued the yelling after a moment. He didn't want Fred to die knowing that his twin was some kind of freak.

Fred started to get weaker. George could tell that his time was running out, and if he didn't act soon, he wouldn't be able to act at all. That only made him want to deny everything, and deny more than he'd already been; there was so much to shove to the back of his mind and ignore to make things less painful.

It was a sunny afternoon when the shop was quiet that George couldn't take it anymore; he paused while putting something away on a shelf, and said, "You're sick, Fred."

Fred dropped whatever he was holding. It shattered on the ground, and George hoped fleetingly that it wouldn't burn a hole there, because if it did that meant it wasn't fit to be sold in the first place.

"I'm not sick," Fred said firmly.

"I've known for a long time," George said. "I know you don't want to admit it and I don't either, but you have to do something."

Fred picked up the pieces, swept up the mess. There were no holes in the floor, but there was a big one in Geroge's heart, and he thought that there was going to be one in his life soon.

"I can't do anything about it."

"Can't you see a healer?"

"I've seen several. They don't know what to do. This isn't a magical illness," Fred said, bitterly. "I've got some weird Muggle disease, and they can't even cure it, either."

Magic couldn't solve all problems, it was true; neither could modern medicine. It seemed so stupid, a wizard getting a Muggle disease, but apparently it could happen. George wondered, why did it have to happen to Fred?

Why couldn't it have been George?

"Why do you hate me?" George asked, on one of those evenings when Fred was staring out the window, thinking of things that George could only guess at. The question wasn't really safe, but he wanted to know; he wanted to hear a reason that was different enough from his own to calm some of the worry that was keeping him up at night.

"I don't hate you," Fred said. George didn't know if that should worry him more or make him feel relieved.

"You're not like you used to be," George said. He regretted those words immediately, because it was too much like stating the obvious. Fred gave a sarcastic little laugh, and turned to face him.

"So are you," he said, "Much more different than I am. At least I've been trying."

That stemmed another argument, if only because George wanted to avoid the subject. Yelling solved everything.

Fred got weaker, and George got angrier. It was easier to tell them apart now because Fred was emaciated, and George never smiled anymore. Their customers could barely recognize any of them, and business slowed down a little; half the people in the store only came to see them, because they were so loveable.

That was probably one of their flaws, George reflected if Fred wasn't so loveable, he wouldn't have been so in love with him, and he wouldn't have had to worry about morals or anything, because there wouldn't have been a problem.

If Fred hadn't been so loveable, maybe George wouldn't have been dying along with him.

It didn't take long for Fred to become the one who couldn't get out of bed. George ran the shop without him, but he didn't care if it went completely down the toilet. The shop was their project, and if they weren't together, what was the point?

He spent his evenings by Fred's side, holding his hand. Fred talked in his sleep sometimes; he wasn't awake very often, though, so they didn't really carry out any conversations. On the rare time that Fred was awake, he was usually visited by one of the family, and George would wait in the doorway until they left then he would tell Fred to rest, and that he would be there to talk later.

George did a lot of talking while Fred slept, though; he talked to him about his forbidden feelings, and about incest, and about all of the things he'd like to do but never could, because they were wrong.

He talked to Fred about all the things he'd never said and never would say while Fred could hear; about all the things that had ever kept him awake at night, and would continue to keep him awake at night long after Fred was gone.

He questioned why Fred was lying in that bed wasting away when it was George himself who really wanted to die; he questioned why the world had to be so damn unfair, even to someone who had suffered enough of it.

When Fred woke up, George would try to smile and fail; then their mother would come, or one of their siblings or many friends, and George would wait in the doorway until they left.

Sometimes Fred tried to ask him a question, but he always hushed him and told him that he needed his rest.

"I'd gladly die in your place, Fred. I deserve it, for all the things I've ever thought about you. I love you, you know. I want you so bad I can hardly stand it sometimes. I'm glad you can't hear me, though, because I'm afraid that you might feel the same way. We're twins, after all."

Fred was so cold. George kept his fingers against Fred's wrist, to feel the pulse there, to assure himself that Fred was really still alive.

"Don't die," he pleaded. He was crying; he hadn't cried in a long time, even though he'd wanted to. The last of his reserves were gone. He hadn't slept in days, because he was afraid that if he did, Fred would be gone when he woke up.

"Don't die, I love you so much."

Fred's eyes were open. George didn't realize it until the words were already out of his mouth. Fred smiled at him, and wiped a tear from his eye; George's worst suspicions were confirmed, and his doubts were alleviated, and he wanted to jump for joy, and then jump out of the window.

"I love you too," Fred said. "I've heard every word you've said while you were sitting there, you know." His voice was so weak and pathetic; not at all like the Fred that George knew so well, and yet it was, it was Fred lying there, confessing to him, and dying "I didn't want to interrupt you, so I never said anything."

"It's not right," George protested, but his voice was just as weak.

"I know. That's why I never said anything. We're a couple of twits, aren't we? I'm sorry."

"You won't die thinking that I'm a freak, will you?"

Fred didn't have the strength to answer. He smiled vaguely, but George wasn't reassured at all. He wanted to start yelling again, but he knew that wouldn't help; it would only make Fred sad. A Fred that was not smiling meant a Fred that George could deny in his heart but most of the time, that only hurt even more.

Fred's eyes closed, and George rested his face against Fred's chest. He couldn't hear a heart beat, but he refused to think about it. He was with his twin now, and they were finally happy, and nothing was ever going to make them miserable ever again. Their almost psychic bond told George that Fred's pain had stopped, and George's pain was almost gone as well; he just needed to sleep a little longer.


End file.
